Update (7 August 2025, 12:32PM): It looks like we didn’t have to wait until next week to hear how much Trump’s tariffs on semiconductors and chips were going to be. The man announced that any of the components being imported into the country and not made domestically will be hit with a 100% tariff.
“So 100% tariff on all chips and semiconductors coming into the United States. But if you’ve made a commitment to build (in the U.S.), or if you’re in the process of building (in the U.S.), as many are, there is no tariff,” Trump said.
Trump also went a step further, adding that any company intending to backtrack on their promise – a more common parlance for this action is also known as “pulling a fast one”, will pay for it, literally. “If, for some reason, you say you’re building and you don’t build, then we go back and we add it up, it accumulates, and we charge you at a later date, you have to pay, and that’s a guarantee.”
Original article below:
US President Donald Trump has announced plans to introduce new tariffs, this time targeting semiconductors and chips, as soon as next week. It’s the latest round of tariffs to surface from the man, and one that remains unclear as to how much these new tariffs will be.
Trump made the announcement during a session on CNBC’s Squawk Box earlier this week. “We’re going to be announcing on semiconductors and chips, which is a separate category, because we want them made in the United States,” he said in a lengthy interview.
The tariffs are part of the Trump administration’s broader ongoing export restrictions on AI chips. The country is trying to bolster its domestic chip manufacturing industry, and one of its alternatives to the tariffs is to get global industry players to build their factories on US soil.
TSMC and Intel are two companies that already have facilities and plants built on US soil, the former already having set up their third building in the state of Arizona, and the latter in Ohio.
That being said, Intel had said weeks back that it was delaying the construction of its chip manufacturing plant in Ohio again. Understandably, given the chipmaker’s current state of affairs and restructuring. That said, both it and TSMC had been recipients of the US Chips And Science Act in 2022 – the bill was signed in 2022 by the previous Biden administration – before it was rescinded in May this year.
Trump’s upcoming tariffs will undoubtedly cause some disruption within the US hardware and AI sector. The long-standing question, though, is just how far and wide the effects would be. In any case, it looks like the world is going to be sitting around with bated breath till next week the man’s alleged announcements.
(Source: CNBC, TechCrunch, The Star)
